Young children in the toddler and preschool range pose a significant challenge for their parents. The literature has documented an array of childhood problems (e.g., toileting, tantrums, fears, noncompliance) that parents can expect to experience during this period. Unfortunately, very limited consumer information and community services are available to help parents with these emerging concerns. In fact, there is a general paucity of research literature addressing parenting of young children. A logical starting point for building a knowledge base in this area is to determine current parent practices with young children. Within the general parameters of Roy's Adaptation Model for Nursing Practice and the more specific tenets of developmental and behavioral theorists, this study is designed to develop a scale to assess contemporary parenting behaviors with toddlers and preschoolers. Items will reflect actual parent responses to specific child behaviors, parents' developmental expectations for their child, and environmental arrangements parents make to accommodate their child. The resulting Parenting Questionnaire (PQ) will be administered to a representative sample of 1000 mothers with young children. Race, sex, and age of the child will be systematically controlled in the sample; in addition, care will be taken to insure that all socioeconomic status levels are fairly reflected in the sample. Factor-analytic techniques will be used to determine how items on the PQ cluster into meaningful groups or subscales. Subsequent analyses will address the reliability and validity of the PQ. The primary purpose of the project is to develop an efficient and practical assessment tool for use by nurses and related professionals who work with parents of young children. Such a tool would provide nursing professionals with a measure to objectively assess an individual's parenting strengths and limitations. This clinical tool could also be used to evaluate the impact of intervention efforts with parents. The development of the PQ is envisioned as the first step in a series of research studies on parenting young children. The long-range goal of this line of research is to teach parents effective parenting to promote healthy parent-child relationships.